Bhaskar Das: A relentless soul, eternally positive & a man with no ego

I have had conversations with Bhaskar Sir, dating back to 2007 - when he was President of Response at BCCL. The first thing I can remember is that he never came with the ego of a senior executive - he had this humorous way of speaking - which gave me comfort. Those days he wanted to learn digital (despite being the President at BCCL), he told me that “he wanted to become a digital junky”.

My conversations became far deeper when he was my super senior at ZEEL. We met multiple times in the Four Seasons Mumbai Coffee Shop. I actually booked time with him, to learn and understand concepts of life. He would always start with “What can I teach you?” but slowly he would get into his rhythm and share massive pearls of wisdom. It was not easy to understand those things, as at first impression - they sounded submissive, but slowly I learned what he was trying to say. One day I think I was there with him and DG (Debashish Ghosh, my manager at ZEEL) - and we were angry about something, or maybe I was angry - and he told us “He is a man and you are a man”. I didn't understand, and I asked him the same - He explained that all of us are mere men and we will all die one day - so there is nothing special about anyone - what's the point of being angry?

I didn't even fully understand back then, but over time, this is something I remember many times in life and this definitely helps me.

Once I attended a workshop where he was giving the first session - he explained without any hesitation how media buyers treated him, when he was with BCCL vs when he was with other companies. Now people say these things in private but for him to speak it openly - it took some courage. During the break, I asked him, “Sir, I am so surprised, you said it openly” - He replied with a big smile,  “It's the truth, isn't it?”. I was floored.

Today, when I heard of his demise, I was shocked, as the last phone call I had with him, he was so positive and full of life. He wanted to do more work and I asked him, why don't you retire now…but he was no way even interested in retiring.

It's very difficult to believe that he is no more. I think there are a lot of learnings we can take from his life, here are a few of them:

1. Be eternally positive (he never spoke of his disease or health issues)
2. Keep working till the end
3. Have no ego
4. Keep learning - let me come from anywhere

This tribute for Bhaskar Das has been written by Sandeep Amar, Founder - PDlab.me.